AI-assisted vs. non-AI assisted product ideation: An experimental study

Topic

This Master Thesis examines how AI-assisted ideation influences the creativity of product ideas compared to non-AI-assisted ideation. Using a controlled experimental design, participants generated product ideas either with ChatGPT support or without AI assistance. The study evaluates idea creativity through the dimensions of novelty and meaningfulness, with meaningfulness operationalized through usefulness-related evaluation items. In addition, it explores whether AI literacy influences ideation outcomes. The research focuses specifically on early-stage digital product ideation and investigates idea creativity, task completion time, and collective idea diversity.

Relevance

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT are increasingly being integrated into creative and innovation processes within organizations. However, many companies still lack clarity regarding when AI improves idea generation and which aspects of creativity are actually affected. This research is relevant for practitioners because it shows that AI can support faster ideation and help generate ideas that are perceived as more useful, relevant, and appropriate. At the same time, the findings caution against assuming that AI automatically increases originality or reduces creative diversity. The study helps organizations develop a more differentiated understanding of how AI can be integrated into early-stage innovation processes without confusing efficiency or polish with creativity as a whole.

Results

The findings show that AI-assisted participants completed the ideation task significantly faster than non-AI-assisted participants. AI-assisted ideas were also evaluated more positively in terms of meaningfulness, especially relevance, appropriateness, and usefulness. However, no significant differences were found for novelty-related dimensions. Contrary to the expectation that AI-assisted ideas would be less diverse, the PCA-based dispersion analysis did not show lower collective diversity among AI-assisted ideas. Instead, AI-assisted ideas showed descriptively higher dispersion in the evaluation space, although this difference was not statistically significant. The exploratory moderation analysis further suggests that AI literacy may matter for novelty, but not for meaningfulness. However, this finding should be interpreted cautiously due to the small and unbalanced subsample.

Implications for practitioners

• AI can improve ideation efficiency and reduce the time required to generate structured product ideas.
• AI-assisted ideation may enhance the usefulness, relevance, and appropriateness of ideas, especially in early-stage digital product ideation.
• AI-assisted ideation should not be treated as a direct shortcut to originality, because no significant novelty advantage was found.
• The findings do not support the assumption that using AI automatically reduces collective idea diversity.
• Organizations should combine AI-assisted ideation with deliberate creativity techniques that encourage divergence, critical reflection, and alternative framing.
• Developing employees’ AI literacy and prompting skills may be especially important when the goal is to generate more novel or differentiated ideas.

Methods

This study used a two-phase between-subjects experimental design. In the first phase, participants were randomly assigned to either an AI-assisted condition, where they used ChatGPT during ideation, or a non-AI-assisted condition. All participants completed the same standardized digital product ideation task focused on improving information management in messaging applications. In the second phase, independent raters evaluated the generated ideas using validated creativity scales measuring novelty and meaningfulness based on Im and Workman (2004). Statistical analyses included Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests, and exploratory Principal Component Analysis. The PCA was complemented with component loadings and centroid-based dispersion measures to examine similarity, variation, and collective idea diversity without relying only on visual inspection.